IMAGING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING SYSTEM

• US 20170280121A1
• Filed: 06/14/2017
• Published: 09/28/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Hata, Tetsuya
• Granted Patent: US 10,536,679 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/60 relating to illumination properties, e.g. using a reflectance or lighting model
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/94 Hardware or software architectures specially adapted for image or video understanding
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/161 Detection; Localisation; Normalisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/611 where the recognised objects include parts of the human body
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/80 Camera processing pipelines; Components thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/88 for colour balance, e.g. white-balance circuits or colour temperature control
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/75 Circuitry for providing, modifying or processing image signals from the pixel array

Abstract

An imaging apparatus includes an image sensor, a control unit, a first image processing unit, and a second image processing unit. The image sensor includes a plurality of pixels, each of which includes a photoelectric conversion unit which converts light into an electric charge. The control unit makes a first control line output a signal based on the electric charge of the photoelectric conversion unit to a first signal line, and makes a second control line output a signal based on the electric charge of the photoelectric conversion unit to a second signal line. The first image processing unit performs first image processing for the signal output to the second signal line. The second image processing unit performs second image processing for the signal output to the first signal line based on a result of the first image processing in the first image processing unit.

Claims

1. An image sensor stacked on an image sensor layer and an signal processing layer, comprising:

a plurality of pixels which converts an optical image into an image signal;

a first signal processor which detects a predetermined image region based on the image signal;

a first output terminal which outputs the image signal to a second signal processor included in an external device;

a second output terminal which outputs output region information related to the predetermined image region for processing in the second signal processor, and

an input terminal which receives setting data for the first signal processor;

wherein the image sensor layer includes the plurality of pixels, and

wherein the signal processing layer includes at least the first signal processor.

2. The image sensor according to claim 1, wherein the signal processing layer includes the first output terminal, the second output terminal, and the input terminal.

3. The image sensor according to claim 1, further comprising a first signal line, connecting to the plurality of pixels, for outputting the image signal to the first output terminal, and a second signal line, connecting to the plurality of pixels, for outputting the image signal to the first signal processor.

4. The image sensor according to claim 1, wherein the first signal processor completes detecting processing to detect the predetermined image region before the first output terminal outputs all the image signals for the pixels.

5. The image sensor according to claim 1, wherein the first signal processor is configured to detect an image region including a specular reflection component on a surface of an object, an image region including a face of an object person, or an image region including a specified object.

6. The image sensor according to claim 1, wherein the first signal processor performs template matching processing for the image signal.

7. The image sensor according to claim 1, wherein the first signal processor detects the predetermined image region based on the brightness of the image signal.

8. The image sensor according to claim 1, wherein the first signal processor detects a plurality of the predetermined image regions based on the image signal.

9. The image sensor according to claim 1, further comprising a first control unit and a second control unit which is different from the first control unit for selecting an image signal to be output from the plurality of pixels.

10. The image sensor according to claim 3, further comprising a selecting switch configured to select whether the image signal is to be output to the first signal line or the second signal line.

11. The image sensor according to claim 1, wherein data amount of the image signal which is processed by the first signal processor is less than that of the image signal processed by the second signal processor included in an external device.

12. The image sensor according to claim 1, further comprising a first memory in which a plurality of setting data is recorded in advance, wherein the first signal processor acquires a plurality of parameters sequentially form the first memory to detect the predetermined region.

13. The image sensor according to claim 12, further comprising a second memory in which a detection result of the first signal processor is recorded.

14. The image sensor according to claim 12, wherein an amount of the plurality of parameters acquired from the first memory is limited based on a frame rate.